Digital competency of educators in the virtual learning environment: a structural equation modeling analysis

TL;DR

This study examines how educators' digital competencies influence the fit between Moodle and teaching tasks, affecting system use and performance, using structural equation modeling on survey data from Malaysian university staff.

Contribution

It integrates digital competency into task-technology fit theory and empirically demonstrates its impact on Moodle utilization and teacher performance.

Findings

Digital competency components significantly influence task-technology fit.

Task-technology fit positively affects Moodle utilization and teacher performance.

Moodle utilization substantially impacts performance outcomes.

Abstract

This study integrates the educators digital competency (DC), as an individual characteristic construct of the task-technology fit (TTF) theory, to examine a better fit between Moodle using and teaching task, and to investigate its effect on both Moodles utilization and their task performance. For assessing our proposed hypotheses, an online survey was conducted with 238 teaching staff from different departments of universities in Malaysia. Using Structural Equation Modelling (SEM), our analysis revealed that all the proposed components (i.e., technology literacy, knowledge deepening, presentation skills, and professional skills) of digital competency significantly influenced the TTF. The Task-Technology Fit was also found as an influential construct, which positively and significantly affected both Moodles utilization and teachers task performance. Besides, Moodles utilization was confirmed to be a substantial determinant of the performance impact. In the end, this study included limitations and future directions based on how the study's contribution can support academics and practitioners for assessing and understanding what particular components of digital competency impact TTF, which in turn may influence the systems utilization and performance impact.